Still dancing with BA...

I think I'm going to keep the section of Blood Angel that I'm working on in 2 parts, after all. I don't want these bits to be too massive, just something like 20-25K in wordage, but I'm still open to either way. Right now, I'm working on the Prussian part to see if it will flow into the Korea part...but at the moment I'm feeling a hard break coming at the point where Léonidès realizes he has to do something about Franz, now that's he's been turned and revealed that for all his manners and grace, he's a monster at heart.

I'm still wondering if I should do sketches to go with parts of the story...like when Léonidès is watching Franz tend to his injured horse...or when Léon grabs his first meal in the Prussian section. I'm getting some serious fantasy crap out of the way with this story, seeing as how Léonidès grabs a deserter after the man's murdered an peasant, then bathes him and rapes him and kills him, then buries him to be like fertilizer.

I'm letting this book go over the top in its brutality. Just to let off some steam after arguing with idiots on Twitter, Instagram and even Facebook, now. To be honest, a streak of this cruelty has always been inside me, lying dormant as if waiting to burst into reality. I've caught glimmers of it rousing a couple of times, but overall I kept it back. I don't want to hurt anyone, so I won't let myself go, due to that danger.

What convinced me I had the need to be careful was when I went to meet with an actor who wanted to be in The Wilderness Rule, a movie I wrote for a guy named Anthony Lo Presti to direct. Overall the film project was a disaster. Poor planning on my part. Unwillingness to postpone to get better prepared. A director who didn't know jack shit. The actors were good and gave far more than they needed to, but I let things collapse into chaos.

Anyway, Lo Presti and I drove up to Dallas from Houston to meet the actor and let him read for us. I fed him lines. We did a bit of the script where he was begging for his life...and he was good. Damn good. But what jolted me was something animalistic roared up deep in my chest, and if Lo Presti hadn't been there, I could easily have lost control and jumped the guy like a beast. Not my favorite memory, nor has it happened, since...because I won't let it. Won't put myself in that situation, again.

That's what my writing helps keep at bay...the beast within me. When I wrote The Beast in the Nothing Room, I was the beast, at times. Now, maybe, I'm too old to be...but never hurts to be careful.